Learning Google's E-E-A-T Through Scrambled Eggs

When you click on a piece of content, do you ever ponder on whether it was created to genuinely help you, or whether it was designed primarily to rank highly in search results?

Having grown up alongside search engines, I know the frustration of clicking through multiple pages before finding a clear answer. At times, I have questioned how certain pieces of content could rank so highly while failing to provide the information I was looking for.

That frustration is one I encounter less often today, as search engines have improved their ability to identify and deliver relevant, useful content. However, we are now in the midst of another transition toward a “zero-click” world, where searchers increasingly receive answers directly within the gated eco-system of the search engine without ever visiting a website.

This shift has prompted a reevaluation of what constitutes quality content and what creators must do to remain relevant. It has also raised an important question: How can marketers and creators produce content that meets these evolving expectations?

The answer lies, at least in part, in E-E-A-T.

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is a concept within Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, providing a useful framework for self-evaluating the quality of created content.

As part of my assignment, and to both share my findings and deepen my understanding of the concept, I will examine a real-world example of E-E-A-T in an article published by The New York Times. Fittingly for me, the article is titled ““This Is How You Get the Best Scrambled Eggs” by J. Kenji López-Alt.

Experience

Experience is the first “E” in E-E-A-T. It refers to an author’s first-hand experince with a subject and can be demonstrated through personal stories, practical examples, direct observations, or original testing.

The article demonstrates Experience through the author’s personal cooking anecdotes and hands-on experimentation.

Personal context: The author grounds the article in a challenge he faces in his own life: making creamy scrambled eggs for his busy weekday breakfast. By describing the problem and the effort he made to find a solution, he establishes that his advice comes from first-hand experience.
Original testing and observation: The author also describes experiments he conducted with salting and beating eggs. For example, he explains how allowing salted eggs to rest for 10 to 15 minutes affected their final texture. By sharing the methods and results of his own testing, he demonstrates personal research and recommendations.

Expertise

Expertise is the second “E” in E-E-A-T. While Experience demonstrates that a creator has personally engaged with the topic they are writing about, Expertise reflects the knowledge, skills, and credentials they have developed within the field.

The author demonstrates Expertise in several ways:

Professional background: The author draws on his previous work as a professional breakfast cook at No. 9 Park. This experience establishes his background as a chef and suggests that he developed specialized knowledge of preparing breakfast dishes, many of which involve eggs.
Explaining the science: The author explains how proteins such as ovalbumin and ovotransferrin react during cooking. He also describes how salt affects protein structure and how starch molecules help retain moisture. From an Expertise perspective, this demonstrates that he understands not only which techniques work, but also why they work.

Authoritativeness

The “A” in E-E-A-T stands for Authoritativeness. It evaluates whether an author or website is recognized as a reputable source on a particular topic. While Experience and Expertise focus on personal involvement and knowledge, Authoritativeness is demonstrated through external recognition. This article benefits from both the authority of its author and the platform on which it is published.

Author authority: The author, James Kenji López-Alt, has an impressive professional background. His biography highlights his credentials as a New York Times columnist, former Managing Culinary Director of SeriousEats.com, and author of the James Beard Award-winning book The Food Lab. Together, these achievements demonstrate that his knowledge of food science and recipe development is recognized within the culinary industry and can be easily verified through external sources.
Platform authority: The article is published by The New York Times Cooking, an established and widely recognized source of journalism. Its reputation and history of publishing credible content add authority to the article. This authority can also be measured through external SEO tools. For example, Semrush’s backlink checker reports that the website has received approximately 663 million backlinks, indicating that it is frequently referenced by other websites.

Trustworthiness

Trust is the most important element of E-E-A-T. As Google explains in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines, Experience, Expertise, and Authoritativeness all contribute to whether a page can ultimately be considered trustworthy. Trustworthiness considers factors such as whether the content is accurate, safe, transparent, supported by reliable sources, and published on a secure website.

The reputation of The New York Times already provides readers with a degree of confidence, but the article also builds trust in several specific ways:

Transparency and sourcing: The author clearly credits the people behind the techniques he discusses. He attributes the butter method to chef Daniel Boulud, the starch-slurry technique to Mandy Lee of Lady & Pups, and additional culinary insight to Steph Li and Chris Thomas of Chinese Cooking Demystified. This transparency shows that he is not presenting other creators’ ideas as his own.
Clear byline and author information: The article includes a prominent byline linked to the authors other work, along with publication details and photography credits. This allows readers to identify who created the content, review the author’s credentials, and understand everything about the content.

Finally, it is important to note that E-E-A-T is held to an especially high standard for content covering YMYL, or “Your Money or Your Life,” topics. Because this type of content can affect a person’s health, finances, or general well-being, creators working in these areas should become particularly familiar with the concept.

Conclusion

In conclusion, an article about scrambled eggs can provide a surprisingly effective example of E-E-A-T in practice. Like the professional he is, J. Kenji López-Alt combines experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness to create content that is useful and high-quality according to the framework.

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Source

López-Alt, J. K. (2021, February 19). This is how you get the best scrambled eggs. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/dining/perfect-scrambled-eggs.html

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